Anime Expo, the largest anime and manga convention in North America, was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 2 through July 5.

This was Anime Expo’s second year at the LACC. The previous year’s convention, AX 2008, was a great success with the fans and in general was a well-run convention without any major snafus or mishaps, no small feat considering it was the convention’s first time being held at that enormous venue.

Thursday, Day One, started off with a sobering keynote address by Austin Osueke, founder of San Francisco publisher eigoManga. Osueke’s emphasis was on the recession’s effect on the manga business in general, and on emerging companies like eigoManga in particular. The keynote address was followed by an industry roundtable discussion on turning anime and manga properties into Hollywood movies, the difficulties thereof, and working in cooperation with the original Japanese creators.

Popular Japanese seiyuu (voice actor) Toshiyuki Morikawa, one of the convention’s guests of honor, had his panel on Thursday. Morikawa charmed the audience by telling them that he had just flown in from Japan the day before, and was worried about leaving his dog, William Axl Morikawa (“Axl” for Axl Rose from Guns N’ Roses), a 70-lb. Labrador. Morikawa stated that he has done “hundreds” of BL (Boy’s Love, or yaoi) roles, and that from the outset he has never minded doing them, as he feels that an actor should be able to portray any role.

The crowds were a bit light on Thursday, probably due to the fact that some people still had to work at their jobs and wouldn’t get off work until Friday.

Day Two got started with a lively industry roundtable discussion on the commercial viability of OEL (Original English Language) manga in the U.S. Participants in the discussion included Northrop Davis, a writer-producer and teacher of anime who pitched Battle Angel Alita to Twentieth-Century Fox, which subsequently acquired it for director James Cameron; artist Robert Le; Tokyopop senior editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl; Radical Comics editor Luis Reyes; and Robert Napton, Bandai’s director of marketing. One of the topics discussed was how beginning artists can use the Internet as a place to train and to try out their comic art.

BAAU (Bay Area Artists United) was represented at Anime Expo. Their table in the Artist’s Alley was well-positioned at a corner/intersection near the entry area. The group’s eighth collection of comic works, “BAAU 8,” was for sale, along with previous volumes.

Lane Terasaki of BAAU

Dan Perkel and Po-Lung Chia of BAAU

Attendance definitely picked up on Friday:

San Francisco-based company Viz Media held its panel in the afternoon, discussing its full slate of upcoming manga and anime products for the remainder of 2009 and beginning of 2010.

Ran across a happy gathering of Saiyuki cosplayers, as evening approached:

Saturday, Day Three, dawned bright and early with a keynote address on the digital distribution of anime by Kun Gao, CEO of the San Francisco-based company Crunchyroll. Gao narrated a powerpoint presentation on the efficacy of digital distribution, then participated in the industry roundtable discussion on the same topic that followed. The roundtable was dominated by Crunchyroll and Viz, as they seemed to have the most experience in this area.

One quote really caught the audience’s attention: Justin Sevakis, founder of Anime News Network, noted that years ago when DVDs were the hot entertainment item, people would collect DVDs in order to display them proudly across their living room wall, taking pleasure in the fact that they could watch any of these movies at any time. “Now,” Sevakis said, “It’s more like: ‘I bought all those?’” Meaning: in the age of digital delivery/distribution, actually owning physical DVDs now seems… obsolete.

The Sword of the Stranger showing drew a large audience in the biggest, ballroom-sized video room. It was my first time seeing this movie, but it won’t be my last – it’s fantastic, with some of the best samurai swordfighting scenes I’ve ever seen in a film. Bandai needs to be promoting this movie a lot more than they have been… it deserves a wider audience.

Saturday, South Hall

Sgt. Frog invades AX

Dealer’s Hall

This year, Artist’s Alley was included within the Dealer’s Hall, at the far northern end of the gigantic exhibition space. Last year, Artist’s Alley was located in a separate hall. It was interesting to see emerging artists essentially sharing space with professional dealers in anime and manga goods; one side doing it basically for the love and enthusiasm of it, the other side trying to move product in hopes that their sales would justify the trip to L.A. for the convention. It was obvious that the artists had been moved into the Dealer’s Hall because space was available – in other words, the tight economy meant fewer dealers and hence, empty space opened up in the Dealer’s Hall that needed to be filled.

Hello Kitty goes shopping in the Dealer’s Hall

One of the best things about a convention are the spontaneous events that crop up unexpectedly, usually involving fans. The above photo doesn’t do it justice, but some fans were playing songs from “Thriller” on a boombox in the large unused Concourse Hall space, and began dancing like Michael Jackson in tribute to the late pop idol. At one point there were at least 50 fans gathered in a semi-circle to watch and cheer, as a kid cosplaying as Naruto did the dance from “Billie Jean”…

Sunday, the fourth and final day, was a quiet day/getaway day, as last days of conventions generally are.

Some fans relaxed in the manga library:

Crunchyroll held its official panel in the morning. Another panel, presented by NIS, a gaming company located in Southern California, discussed the “localization” process (i.e., the process by which a Japanese video game is remastered/dubbed/modified for the English-language audience), and announced that they were looking to hire an editor to oversee the English language translated materials. They are located in Santa Ana, California, and the editor would need to work on-site. Their website is: www.nisamerica.com.

Conclusion

The estimate of the number of unique attendees for the convention has now been tallied at 44,000, approximately 1,000 more than in 2008. I would say the death of anime in America is a rumor that can now officially be put to rest. 

Jan Suzukawa is a freelance writer who works in the manga industry as an editor and English adaptation writer. Website: www.jansuzukawa.com.

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Suddenly out of the midst of the crowd emerged a familiar figure, someone I had wanted to meet in person for years. It was Tifa Lockheart! Everything went into bullet-time as I reached for my camera thinking that if I could walk away with anything worth any value that day, it would be a picture of Tifa. I carefully positioned myself to discreetly take my shot unnoticed as she walked past me. But then the unthinkable happened; she spotted my camera!! I froze in my shoes expecting Tifa to give me that annoyed look that would make me blurt out “I’m sorry!” and run away flailing my arms into the horizon. But instead she gave me a smile and struck a pose, waiting for me to take her picture! It all played out like clockwork, and that, my friends, was the magic moment that opened the gateway for my appreciation, admiration, and enthusiasm for anime conventions.

Fast forward to February 14th, 2009. It was Valentines Day and I spent it with BayAnime at AOD in San Francisco. AOD was my fifth art-related con and third anime con, and as usual I was able to continue my streak of having each con experience be more enjoyable and educational than the last. Unlike previous years, I decided to grow some balls and take a stab at some light cosplay.

Who did I go as? I cosplayed myself from my Flash animation series XIN (I’m one of the dudes who gets beaten up in session #2). I felt really self-conscious as I was putting on my wig and tie inside the convention building, but as soon as I walked into the main hall I felt right at home. My censor bar sunglasses ended up getting more attention than I’d expected. My rule was that if you wanted to try them on, I got to take your picture. Only two guys had the guts to actually do so.

Unfortunately, we will never know who they really were.

Despite the fact that no one at the con recognized my character and I couldn’t see a damned thing behind that censor bar, I still had a blast talking with all the people at the Artists Alley and taking pictures of the many cosplayers performing in the main hall. Costumes ranged from amazing representations of popular anime/video game characters, Japanese school uniforms, and adorable maids, to original concoctions like the guy below on the left with the kickass mask.

In a nutshell, there was no shortage of “AWESOME!” at this con.

People from the cool side.

I learned that it’s a good idea to attend cons as a group and an even better idea to bring food! Picnics like the one below could be seen around the convention area.

Some of the best eye candy also came from the Artists Alley. Moving from table to table, I was amazed at the variety of mediums that were displayed. I got to check out everything from hand painted pottery, anime tote bag designs, embroidered characters, intricate hand-made doll dresses, and of course a whole bunch of awesome illustrations.

Hanging out with BAAU is always a good time.

Unfortunately, I made a few mistakes this year. First off, I missed my chance to buy or commission anything from the artists. I just got too caught up in taking pictures and chatting; before I knew it, most of the tables had closed shop for the day. Next time I’m planning on taking care of this business right on the spot! My biggest mistake, however, was losing a ton of great info by being careless. While I made sure to get a website address or Deviant art page address from all the artists I talked to, many of these addresses were written on small snippets of paper that were mercilessly shoved into my jean pockets. When I got home I pulled all my hair out, crying in agony as I realized that more than half of the URLs collected had been FUBARed or gone MIA! I’ll definitely be more careful in the future, but still I’d recommend that artists hand out business cards or URLs written on sturdier material.

Here’s a list of artist website URLs that I salvaged:

www.baau.org
www.taretarekun.deviantart.com
www.elliskp.deviantart.com
www.sukyan.deviantart.com
www.nikkicole.deviantart.com
www.carrielicious.com
www.theprintedotakus.webs.com
www.travelvalenti.blogspot.com
www.wannabehokage.etsy.com
www.reallifecomics.com

Before I attended AOD I didn’t know much about it except the word on the street was that it was a really small convention. I think that almost every con can be considered “small” when compared to something like Fanime, but like many of the finer things in life, this experience showed me that size doesn’t matter in order to have good time! Thinking back, I’ve certainly come a long way since 2007 as a con-goer. At the end of the day I walked away from AOD with way more photos than I had taken at the “Tales of Anime” con. However, the pictures themselves take a back seat to all the memories that are linked to each and every shot. The real value of the convention was in all those quirky little interactions, conversations, and laughs I had with different artists, staff, and cosplayers. I hope that I get the chance to see them again at future conventions… and I hope that you will, too!

AOD official website: www.aodsf.org

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I woke up on the morning of Saturday, May 23^rd, 2009 with my head stuck in a cloud. It took me a short while to realize that I’d spent the night with BAAU members at the Crown Plaza Hotel across the street from the Fanime convention center. Although I had barely gotten any sleep the night before thanks to the 24-hour party people across the hall, I was focused… I knew that if there was one thing I absolutely had to do that day, it was to check in on time for BayAnime’s “Local Bay Area Anime Fans” panel!

We were all cutting it a bit close, as fellow BayAnime staff members Ann and Colin were racing down to San Jose from San Francisco just that morning. Luckily I managed to get to the Panelist’s Lounge on time to confirm our attendance with Fanime staff member, Rena, who looked just as bright and sunny as she did two years ago when I checked in with her for another Fanime panel. It was nice to see her again even if she didn’t remember me. At the Panelist’s Lounge I also met Ed Schwartz from No-Name Anime who was actually waiting to check out our panel! We then headed to the panel room and met up with other No-Name staff members Rob Shaw, Robert Loo, and Warner Young. Ann and Colin soon showed up to join our crowd, as well as Stythys from the BayAnime forums. Fourth BayAnime staff member Mike arrived minutes before show time, and armed with our trusty Beardog pins, the panel was ready to begin!

The Voices and Minds of Local Bay Area Anime Fans!

With all the different panels at Fanime ranging from “Anime Impact on US Cartoons” to “How to Talk to Girls,” the amount and variety of information one could take in from that weekend was astonishing! BayAnime’s goal this year was to hold an open discussion with local anime fans and explore the current state of anime culture and communities throughout the Bay Area. Our host, Ann, invited members from the audience to come up, introduce themselves, talk about their anime interests, and speak their minds about what they wanted to see in their local communities regarding anime activities. Anyone who shared their thoughts walked away with the gift of a Beardog pin! But as cool as the pins were, the importance of this exercise was to give everyone the opportunity to express themselves as a member of the Bay Area fan community. Several important issues came about during the panel:

Anime fans want to meet more anime fans. Especially fans who live close by.

I remember a funny introduction from Jonas, a gentleman from Reno, Nevada, who made a joke about how he actively represented 1/7 of anime community in his area. This brought on quite a bit of laughter and applause from the audience! As the introductions continued, it became clear that many people felt that anime communities in their local areas were still relatively small and underdeveloped. While the total population of anime enthusiasts was definitely growing, there was a sense that fans remained scattered and somewhat disconnected with one another. FanimeCon was of course one of the ultimate destinations for anime fans to come together and communicate directly, however I got the impression that most people didn’t want to rely solely on a few large conventions to get involved with the community and interact with fellow anime and comic fans. As Ronna from San Jose put it, “For some reason, whenever you go to cons the people you meet inevitably live 3 hours away… if you’re lucky. It would be nice to meet people I could actually see outside of the con.” There was definitely a strong interest from everyone for more local anime events and activities to promote ways connect to with new and nearby friends.

Let’s talk more at screening events (but not during the screening).

When it came to discussing public anime screenings, several audience members expressed that there was a lack of a socializing aspect when it came to such events. Anime and film screenings often attract multitudes of fans and enthusiasts, and many agreed that it would be nice to have some discussions or casual chats with other screening attendees instead of just leaving after a showing. Clubs like No-Name Anime, known for encouraging such activities at their screenings, pointed out that adequate break times between anime showings can provide good opportunities for people to start conversations with other folks. In my personal experience, a number of anime screenings I have been to in the past featured a brief introduction from a host who would come up in front of the audience before playing the show. I always thought that it would be great if hosts would come up again after the screenings and hold a little two-way Q&A with the audience just to kick-start the discussion!

You just have to go do it!

Two letters came to mind as I listened to No-Name staff member Robert Loo speak to the audience — “OG”. Robert Loo and his colleagues have been involved in anime clubs and communities in the Bay area since the mid 90’s (if not earlier), and they also helped fund FanimeCon back when it was just getting started. After sharing some juicy information with us about a Hayao Miyazaki event at UC Berkeley, Robert went on to point out that there are indeed a lot of great events and opportunities out there for anime/animation fans… we just have to be willing to seek them out: “You just gotta start going to the meetings, and start going to different things (events).”

As a veteran of the community, Robert gave us some background on how the bulk of all anime clubs in the 80′s started in colleges and high schools, and how well-known conventions like AnimeCon, FanimeCon, and Anime Expo all originated from around the San Jose area. Although I always thought that the Bay Area would one day become a massive hub for the development and outreach of anime culture, I realized then that this was already the case!

Beardog has his work cut out for him.

A lot of great discussions and information came about from the panel that day. Thanks to Ronna from San Jose, I learned about many new local stores that sell anime merchandise and comic goods (the BayAnime has been updated with this information). More importantly, the insight from all of the panel audience members gave me a good sense of how the Bay Area’s anime community had grown and evolved over the years.

Yet despite all this progress, the widely-expressed feeling by many audience members of being a lone “closet” anime fan in their local community was indicative of problems that had yet to be fully addressed. With so much information to be shared, events to be organized, clubs to be established/maintained, meet ups to be had, and people to bring together, Beardog sure has his work cut out for him! But based on the enthusiasm that I felt from everyone who came to the panel that day, I’m optimistic about what the future has in store for our anime community, and I hope that BayAnime can do its part to contribute to a solution by being a key resource and even a facilitator for Bay Area groups and initiatives.

Of course, the most critical and profound point of the day came from an answer to a question that Ed Schwartz threw to the audience. “What sort of activities would convince people from the South Bay to come up to San Francisco, and visa versa?” Someone from the audience blurted out, “Easy parking!” Amen to that!

Fanime Impressions: Table of Contents

Part 1: Prologue – Do It Because You Can
Part 2: Singing in the Karaoke Contest: An Epic Fail Minus the Fail
Part 3: Notes from BayAnime’s “Local Bay Area Anime Fans” Panel
Part 4: Hanging with BAAU at the Artists Alley + 5 awesome people (Coming Soon)

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As I look back over all the comical, weird, exciting, awkward, fun, endearing, and often enlightening moments that happened during this year’s Fanime Convention, I can’t help but think that all my experiences would have been completely different if I’d decided to spend my Memorial Day weekend like most other years, taking it easy. Somewhere in some alternate/parallel dimension, I see myself sitting in my chair thinking back on how I spent a 3-day weekend nursing a sore throat, sleeping in, playing the new “Punch Out!!” game on the Wii, going out to dinner with a group of friends, and trying to melt popcorn in my mouth as I watched “Terminator Salvation” at the theaters. By no means would such a weekend have been considered “bad,” but in this parallel universe, right about now my alternate self would be feeling an unsettling sense of emptiness and an uneasiness spawning from the fact that I had consciously passed on the largest anime convention in Northern California. This alternate universe came very close to becoming my reality this year, and in fact is pretty much how things panned out when I had stayed home from FanimeCon in 2008.

Many anime fans don’t have to think twice about attending Fanime each year. To most, Fanime is a beloved ritual — a grand event that is prepared for and looked forward to all year round. Everyone has their own reasons for attending the convention whether it may be to cosplay, perform, dance, learn about anime culture, compete in a contest, be part of the Artists Alley, buy cool merchandise, or just have a good time with old and new friends. When I attended FanimeCon for the first time in 2007, I didn’t get to enjoy most of these experiences because I didn’t know that I could. Moreover, I didn’t even think that I might want to be a part of them. I took a few pictures, checked out some panels, and briefly skimmed the Artists Alley. It was all amusing, but I wasn’t having a lot of fun. I mainly recall being overwhelmed and disoriented by the sheer amount of people and all the different events that were taking place around the convention hall. After enduring about 4 hours, I made my way home thinking, “All this looks fun, but maybe it’s a little too much for me.”

That was then. But something had changed inside me over the last year or so. I won’t drag on about how this transformation came about, but this year I was determined to return to Fanime and make the most out of my time there by diving head-first into every aspect of the convention I could get myself involved in. As a result, I went through a sensory overload of laughs, embarrassments, excitement, learning experiences, and ultimately I’d say I ended up having an unforgettable weekend that would become the object of envy to all my alternate selves in those neighboring parallel universes.

Over the next week or so I’d like to share writings, photos and videos of nearly everything I was a part of during the 4 days I spent at FanimeCon 2009. Hopefully some of these stories will amuse you. Perhaps some of you will be able to relate to them. In the end, I hope that they will at least serve as a nice way to reflect back on the extravaganza that is Fanime 2009, and give you some ideas on things to try out and explore when the party starts all over again next year. If you are ever on the fence about directly participating in any convention activities or events the next time the opportunity comes around, I say don’t even think about it … just do it! Do it because you can! At least in my case, this simple line of thinking made all the difference.

Fanime Impressions: Table of Contents

Part 1: Prologue – Do It Because You Can
Part 2: Singing in the Karaoke Contest: An Epic Fail minus the Fail
Part 3: Notes from BayAnime’s “Local Bay Area Anime Fans” Panel (Coming Soon)
Part 4: Hanging with BAAU at the Artists Alley + 5 awesome people (Coming Soon)
Part 5: Ditching the Masquerade (among other things) for the Comedy Club (Coming Soon)
Part 6: The Maid Café: The Good, The Bad, and The Charming (Coming Soon)
Part 7: Ballroom Dance Lessons: Up close and just personal enough (Coming Soon)
Part 8: The BEST panel at Fanime = Speed Comic Jams! (Coming Soon)
Part 9: From Stage Zero the Free Hugs Alley, and everything else (Coming Soon)
Part 10: Epilogue - Why we need Fanime and Why Fanime needs us (Coming Soon)

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Out of 35 total spots for this year’s Fanime Karaoke Contest, 25 were made available for online pre-registration about 3 weeks before the convention. The word around town was that pre-registration for the Karaoke Contest grows more and more competitive each year. This year, looking at how the online sign-up system closed about 20 minutes after going live, I’d say “competitive” could be an understatement. On the evening of Sunday, May 3rd, 2009, hordes of eager contestants sat at their computers with their eyes glued to the Fanime Forums and the Karaoke Twitter page, waiting to sign up at the first sign of a registration form. How do I know this? Well I was one of those people! I believe that I only managed to obtain the last spot available because two other registrants before me didn’t fill out their forms correctly. Here’s hoping that everyone who missed out on the online sign-ups still managed to get a spot on the day of the contest. I knew that I had caught a lucky break that night. I was happy! But whenever I catch such a glimpse of good fortune, fate somehow never fails to come back and bite me in the toes with its twisted sense of humor.

Termination vs. Salvation: Preparing for Judgment Day

The Fanime Karaoke Contest requires that you choose one song for the preliminary round and an additional song for the finals. Contestants are free to sing any song they wish as long it’s categorized under J-pop, J-rock, or an anime theme song. Official vocaloid songs were also a new and welcome addition to the contest this year. I wasn’t anticipating making it to the finals, but I still pushed myself to spend the two weeks prior to the event attempting to phonetically memorize two J-pop songs: “Hitomi Wo Tojite” by Ken Hirai, and “Blurry Eyes” by Larc en Ciel. I’ll say now that I only got to sing one of them at the contest. All in all, my pre-karaoke preparations were going well… until that dreadful morning just two days before Fanime, when I woke up coughing and wheezing from a sore throat.

As fate would have it, I had come down with a case of viral laryngitis caused by allergies and fatigue from pulling several all-nighters at the office. I was relieved when my doctor told me that my condition wasn’t contagious, but my morale for attending Fanime and the Karaoke Contest had taken a gigantic blow. My biggest problem was that I had lost my voice! As I croaked and crackled like a toad with my face stuffed under a pillow trying to sing the songs I’d memorized for the contest, all I could picture were the two words, “EPIC FAIL!!” plastered on my forehead as I squealed on stage in front of a booing audience. Thus the night before Fanime, I was lying in bed contemplating if I should just listen to my doctor’s recommendations and use the coming weekend to rest up and maybe just catch a movie instead of risking full-on embarrassment at the convention. I even came pretty close to convincing myself that the director of the “Charlie’s Angels” movies might actually pull off a decent “Terminator” flick. Luckily I came to my senses after a full night’s rest. The next day, I packed up my gear and headed straight for Fanime. After all, we all know that whatever the circumstances, going through total humiliation still trumps over being a total flake…

…right?

Karaoke Stars Trek: Sing Song and Prosper!

I don’t have any experience with previous Fanime Karaoke Contests, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and declare that this year’s contest had the most talented roster of singers, EVER! The Karaoke staff and host did a great job keeping the contest moving along at an energetic and comfortable pace, and I was thoroughly impressed at the diversity of singers, song choices, and performances. A new feature of this year’s karaoke contest was that people on stage were given the option to have their song lyrics projected on a screen and toggle through them with a Wii remote as they performed. This was a vast improvement and looked way cooler than having singers read off of paper print-outs. Since it was a “karaoke” contest, performers were not marked down for using written lyrics or note cards. Still, many contestants had their songs memorized in order to completely focus their attention on the audience.

Some performances were cute; others were sexy, funny, sweet, exhilarating. While not every singer may have had the greatest voice or the strongest stage presence, all of them were entertaining and a pleasure to watch and listen to. One of my favorite acts of the contest included a young lady and her glow-stick cheer squad. Not only did the singer have an adorable voice, but her off-stage cheering friends brought a lot of energy to the room especially as the contest was winding down. Overall, there were many great performances that drove the audience ecstatic that night. With my trusty camcorder in hand, I managed to take a little footage of every contestant who came on stage.

One thing this video doesn’t really show is the spectacle that all performers on stage got to see. I knew I had to capture this somehow, and this led to my favorite photo of all of Fanime!

I took this shot as soon as I hit the stage during my turn to sing at the contest. The fine people you see in the photo are the best audience any performer could hope for. The enthusiasm and positive vibes from the crowd even helped me forget about the pain in my throat for a moment. I may have gotten a little too pumped, however. A couple of guys were shouting “YEAH~!!” from the far end of the room, probably because I was the first male performer to come on stage that night, or maybe they just thought I was cute. Who knows? In any case, I got caught up in the moment and shouted “YEAH~!!” back to the crowd, which resulted in me receiving a warning from the Karaoke Contest host for yelling straight into the microphone. Future contestants, please note that yelling loudly into the mic is a big no-no at the contest. My singing itself went just like I imagined it would. My voice was raspy, hoarse, and my throat started to shred when I tried to hit the high notes. However, instead of booing me off stage the crowd cheered me on! I also received a warm round of applause at the end. In fact, everyone on stage that night received grand ovations after their performances. If anything, the atmosphere of the room was more of party and a celebration rather than that of a singing contest.

With one contestant gone missing, 34 contestants performed in the preliminaries that night. Thinking back, perhaps one of the biggest crowd reactions came during the break period before the finalists were announced. The Karaoke Contest Staff put on some random music for the room. One of these songs was “Simple and Clean” by Utada Hikaru. A good portion of the audience sang along with the staff. It was a nice, “simple and clean” moment! After it ended, our trusty host came back on stage and said something to likes of, “That was great, but we officially announce that this will be the last time Simple and Clean will be allowed in this and future Karaoke contests!” The crowd went wild roaring in laughter and approval.

As much as I wanted to stay to watch the top ten finalists perform, by around 9:30pm exhaustion was kicking in and my throat was literally killing me. Also I wasn’t exactly sure where I’d be sleeping that night, so after weighing the options I reluctantly left the premises to get some rest for the upcoming day. I have yet to find out who ended up winning the contest. I’m sure I’ll know in due time, but my congratulations go out to everyone who performed that night. As one of the participants put it, “It takes a lot of guts to get up on stage and perform in front of an audience!” I totally agree with this statement, but somehow I feel that just “guts” and even “courage” doesn’t fully describe the essence behind each and every performer. I’m here thinking of a word that exudes a little more optimism, a little more cheerfulness, and just a tad more corniness. Have you guessed it, yet? Here’s a hint, but just read the word in red.

On a closing note, I do remember seeing 4 working microphones on stage that night. Let’s hope that next year there will be more group performances at the contest!

Fanime Impressions: Table of Contents

Part 1: Prologue – Do It Because You Can
Part 2: Singing in the Karaoke Contest: An Epic Fail minus the Fail
Part 3: Notes from BayAnime’s “Local Bay Area Anime Fans” Panel (Coming Soon)
Part 4: Hanging with BAAU at the Artists Alley + 5 awesome people (Coming Soon)
Part 5: Ditching the Masquerade (among other things) for the Comedy Club (Coming Soon)
Part 6: The Maid Café: The Good, The Bad, and The Charming (Coming Soon)
Part 7: Ballroom Dance Lessons: Up close and just personal enough (Coming Soon)
Part 8: The BEST panel at Fanime = Speed Comic Jams! (Coming Soon)
Part 9: From Stage Zero the Free Hugs Alley, and everything else (Coming Soon)
Part 10: Epilogue – Why we need Fanime and Why Fanime needs us (Coming Soon)

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Miyazaki received the 2009 Berkeley Japan Prize from the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in a separate ceremony earlier that day. He is the second recipient of this award, originally established in 2008 as part of the Center for Japanese Studies’ fiftieth year anniversary. The prize is awarded to people in all fields who have influenced the world’s understanding of Japan and Japanese culture over their lifetime. Author Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore, After Dark) was the first recipient in 2008.

During the nearly two hour long conversation, Miyazaki and Kelts discussed (via a translator) some of the themes of his films and thoughts on the industry. Miyazaki gave a little commentary on creating Ponyo as well as his own thought processes when creating films. This was then followed by an audience question and answer segment.

Kelts’ first line of questioning dealt with recurring themes in Miyazaki’s films: the presence of nature, the lack of “true evil”, and the sense of impending doom. Miyazaki explained that although most people think that they are separate from nature, people and nature are one and the same. Both people and nature carry a level of hope against disaster. He joked that it would be wonderful to see the end of the world in his lifetime, but as he knows that it will not happen, he puts it in his films.

“But it’s not a good idea to equate disaster with evil,” Miyazaki said. “It is something we live together with.” He revealed that while the most common storyline is that of good against evil, drawing the evil figure is a task he really doesn’t like to do.

The conversation shifted to what techniques Miyazaki employs to get other animators to see his vision. He singled out Ponyo’s art director, Noboru Yoshida, who he encouraged to “explode into his childness” while drawing the scenes for Ponyo. When it was finished, Yoshida had produced such vivid and energetic scenes. Miyazaki said that it was not the only surprising discovery. “The whole staff was surprised at the goodness (innocence) in us all.”

Kelts commented that although Ponyo is supposedly a goldfish, she is unlike any goldfish that anyone has ever seen before… and that is also the case for most animals in Miyazaki’s films. Miyazaki described the process of drawing a character — eyes first and the rest later. For animals, nature is beyond understanding, he said, and pointed out Totoro’s blank stare. Since Totoro is from nature he would be very unpredictable, and this is something that his eyes show. “He could be thinking deep thoughts or nothing at all.”

On the difficulty in finding and keeping talent these days within the animation industry, Miyazaki clarified that it had always difficult to find and keep animators. However, things have gotten considerably easier with the addition of computers and the ability to send some work overseas to places such as China and South Korea. Miyazaki added that Studio Ghibli likes to keep their animation hand-drawn. They did at some point hire a computer animator to do drudge work, but later found that they could draw faster by hand, as they could more easily add certain visual cues such as making the character smaller when sad and bigger when happy. Computers seem to have a problem in that area.

“Keeping with hand-drawn animation is like rowing a bark (boat) in a sea of speed boats.” Miyazaki continued explaining that there was no real aesthetic reason in keeping with hand-drawn animation because he never really looked into it himself. But because his colleagues are mostly retired, the Studio is a place where they can keep drawing. It’s also a place where younger people can train.

Kelts then turned to questions that the audience had for Miyazaki. One audience member asked for advice for aspiring animators and another asked about overcoming creative blocks. Miyazaki answered that they should draw what they see with their eyes and get someone to look at it who will give constructive criticism. Regarding creative blocks, Miyazaki said that all he can do is think about the problem. He theorized that people think on three different levels: the surface of the brain, the subconscious, and a deeper part of the brain. People should always work from the subconscious, but go deeper when really troubled. “When I really think hard, I smell blood in my nose,” Miyazaki said. “When I have to go deeper, that is when I smell the most blood.”

Miyazaki then fielded a question about who he considers his peers. He noted that he was influenced by too many to name, but considers Pixar’s John Lassiter and Aardman’s Nick Park, who created features like Chicken Run, his brothers in arms although they use different forms of animation.

Miyazaki said that he hopes that his films will still be relevant in 50 years. He would like to hear grandmothers and even mothers say to children that these are films they should watch. The goal of his films is to give children the power to dream and that goal has not changed since the original staff at Studio Ghibli. He stated that Ponyo would not be his last film, and that although he isn’t too sure what will come next, he’ll see what he’s able to do as time goes on.

This post was submitted by Ira Goodwin.

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